It's 3 a.m., and a business student at Carlson is waiting in his dorm room. He isn't procrastinating or scrolling. He's waiting for his turn with a textbook he shares with three other people. Tonight, his neighbor down the hall has it, which means he studies when they're finished.

This is more than an occasional inconvenience. It is a tradeoff that affects when and how he completes his coursework. “I usually get shorted on sleep,” he says, describing nights that stretch to 4 or 5 a.m. before he can read the material he needs for class the next morning. Some nights, he gets only three hours of sleep.

The Iowa native purchased only two of his required textbooks this semester. He borrowed money from his brothers to cover part of the cost, in addition to tuition. To access the rest of the materials he needs, he relies on the shared system with roommates and friends. 

His experience highlights a cost that doesn't appear on a tuition bill: time. When students can't afford required course materials, that burden shows up in their schedules, their sleep, and their ability to prepare for class. This challenge has a name: time poverty.

Time Poverty in Higher Education

The cost of required course materials is one contributor to time poverty, but the issue rarely comes from one source. It is produced by any demand that competes with coursework for a student’s limited hours. For many students, those demands begin long before they enter the classroom.

Caregiving is one of the clearest examples of how competing responsibilities reshape a student’s capacity. Nearly 3.8 million college students are also raising children, representing close to a quarter of the undergraduate population. For these students, coursework must fit alongside responsibilities that cannot be postponed or scheduled around a class curriculum. Each child is associated with less time spent on academic work, with students who have at least one child under 13 having nearly an hour less available each day. 

That lost time doesn’t disappear. Students often recover it from other parts of their lives. One national study found students with children spend roughly 73 hours per week balancing caregiving with other responsibilities compared to 39 hours for students without children. Because caregiving responsibilities cannot be paused or rescheduled, students often sacrifice sleep, personal time, or time they would otherwise spend preparing for class.

Employment creates a similar reality for millions of learners. Seventy-five percent of adult students work while enrolled, and 63% of those students work more than 40 hours per week. For these learners, a job can consume nearly three times the time first-year students typically spend preparing for class each week. As a result, coursework is pushed into the margins of the day, often after work ends, late at night, or in the early hours of the morning. 

These constraints can have measurable academic consequences. Students who work 20 or more hours per week are more likely to miss classes, submit late assignments, earn lower grades, and leave college before completing their degree.

When these roles—caregiver, employee, and student—overlap, the deficit compounds. Students juggling multiple competing responsibilities simultaneously have an estimated 24 fewer hours per week available for their education than peers without those obligations. That's close to a full workweek's worth of time redirected away from studying.

For institutions committed to equity and access, time poverty is central to who succeeds and who doesn't. Time poverty is not simply about having less time; it is about the choices students are forced to make when the systems around them do not account for their circumstances. 

When Affordability Becomes a Student Success Issue

Sharing textbooks, adjusting schedules, and stretching limited resources may narrowly get students through the semester, but they also place the burden of access on the individual. When required materials remain out of reach, students find other solutions that lead to even greater consequences. One in three students choose not to purchase required course materials because of cost. This can mean missed readings, late assignments, or students arriving to class unprepared. Twenty percent report lower grades as a result. The opportunity is not to ask students to navigate these challenges more effectively, but to rethink how access to essential materials is delivered from the start.

Why Affordable Access Gives Students Back Their Most Valuable Resource

Affordable Access programs shift how students receive course materials from an individual responsibility to an institutional infrastructure. Instead of scrambling for textbooks, delaying coursework, or absorbing additional costs, students receive required materials at the start of the term at a lower, predictable price. For administrators, the model is built to scale without adding significant operational burden, making it a practical fit alongside existing financial aid.

Through Affordable Access programs, a typical digital course pack falls from $91 to $58, easing one of the most consistent out-of-pocket expenses in higher education. At Dallas College, where 96% of credit students participate, that reduction translates into about $835 saved per student each year, totaling $46.7 million in savings across the institution. Across all participating institutions, Affordable Access programs generate more than $470 million in total student savings.

Instructors report that the impact is immediate, with 87% saying nearly all students have their materials on the first day, compared with 61% in traditional models. At Florida State College, 89% of students had all required materials by the end of the first week. That changes how effectively an instructor can teach. When all students arrive with the same materials, instructors can build on readings in the first week, design coursework with greater predictability, and spend less time accommodating gaps in accessibility.

Students are better positioned to stay engaged and complete their coursework when access is built into the system. Twenty-seven percent of students in Affordable Access programs are more likely to earn a passing grade and 60% less likely to withdraw from a course. At Dallas College, the impact appeared in students’ ability to persist, with retention increasing from 74% to 78% and withdrawals declining from 27.1% to 17.9%. At UC Davis, removing textbook cost concerns also changed how students approached their education, with nearly three-quarters reporting they felt freer to choose classes without worrying about affordability. 

Students recognize the difference. It’s why 61% prefer Affordable Access over traditional purchasing methods and why the future of affordability depends on building access into the learning experience from the start.

The Future of Student Success Starts Before Class

Student success has traditionally been measured by what happens after a semester begins: attendance, grades, persistence, and graduation. But those results are shaped by decisions made before the first assignment is due.

When students begin a course without the tools they need, they must recover from a disadvantage that could have been prevented. The question is no longer whether students will find a way to adapt. They always do. The question is whether they should have to.

As institutions continue investing in retention and student success strategies, the conditions that define student success before a course begins deserve greater attention. When institutions make access part of the learning experience, they create stronger conditions for students to engage and succeed.

Affordable Access programs represent a growing institutional strategy for making course materials available from day one. McGraw Hill's Affordable Access model has helped campuses nationwide make this shift as part of broader student success efforts. At Waubonsee Community College, that meant nearly all students began class with the materials they needed while reducing the financial burden of course materials. Our approach also supported stronger student persistence at Copiah-Lincoln Community College, with retention rates increasing by 21 percentage points.

For the Carlson student, having that access would change his night entirely. Instead of waiting for a shared textbook, he begins the work immediately because the textbook is already on his desk. The hours once spent finding a workaround are returned to him. And at 3 a.m., the lights are off because he is asleep, ready for the class ahead.

That is what affordable access makes possible: giving students the opportunity to begin their courses ready to learn. The cost of delayed access has always been more than the price of a textbook. That is progress worth investing in.